STATISTICS COLLOQUIUM

Astronomy Department

Case Western Reserve University

Friday, March 21, 1997

3:30 pm - refreshments

4:00 pm-talk

Room 327, Yost Hall

Abstract

In recent years astronomers have come to understand that galaxies often do not form in isolation --- collisions between galaxies can play an important part in their history. This has been highlighted in the case of our own Galaxy (the Milky Way) by the recent discovery that it is currently tearing apart a small satellite galaxy which has fallen in. We are beginning a large survey to find out how common this process of satellite swallowing and destruction has been in the Galaxy's past. The survey and our simulations of the dynamics of satellite destruction will be discussed. These simulations allow us to produce a range of realistic fake data sets. Long after a satellite has dispersed spatially, it still shows a strong "clumping" in velocity space, and tests for this velocity clumping will be discussed.